Finding Normal

I apologize to everyone that I took a little hiatus from writing.  My routine was disrupted by a few different things and my Sunday night blogging session took a bit of a hit.  Now that I’ve been here for nearly two months, I’m realizing that I’m starting to find my normal here.  Although my life here borders on the bizarre… taking UN helicopters and having my temperature checked 6 times a day or so, I suppose you really can get used to anything.  And, of course, not everything is so different.

In case anyone was wondering, Netflix actually does work here so Law and Order have been part of my weekly routine.  The workload here is heavy, but at least once or twice a week a make conscious decision to leave my work laptop closed when I get home and try to cook dinner and watch my Netflix.

Last weekend I was able to have a ‘treat yo’self’ weekend with a friend from work.  She’s lived here off and on for seven years so she knows where to find a good mani/pedi.  I usually work on Saturday, but I slept in and then met my friend for a mani/pedi followed by cappuccinos and pizza.  Then I went home and ate a really nice Valentine’s Day dinner that my roommate (who is French, mind you) made.  Then on Sunday, it was a beach day as per usual.  All in all, not a bad normal to have.

Some things, of course, are still harder to get used to.  Since the city is still on lockdown, we can only get groceries until 6 pm.  Since we all work a lot, it’s really hard to get to the grocery store before it closes, so that is a constant stressor.  And then when you do get to a grocery store, it’s basically a guarantee that you won’t find everything that you need.  They are all quite small and often lack basic things that we would consider a necessity.  I’ve started kind of picking up random things here and there that I know I would use for a recipe and then hoping that something will come together at some point.  I haven’t really found my cooking stride yet because it’s so hard to get ingredients, which is frustrating for me.

I’ve also been dealing with a lot of uncertainty around my job.  As I’ve talked about before, I’m the OICC (observational interim care centre) Manager, where children can complete their quarantine period if they don’t have an appropriate caregiver.  However, the number of cases is dropping quickly and as such, the need for OICCs is dropping as well.  For the past 3 or 4 weeks, there have been a lot of conversations about what to do with the OICC Training Team that I supervise as well as what to do with me.  For those who know me well, you’ll understand how hard it is for me to deal with uncertainty.  Finally this week, my role was decided and I’m quite happy with it.  I’m currently in a period of transition now to become the Freetown Health Manager.  I’ll be essentially supervising all of the health projects that are going on in the capital, which is great for me.  I will still have my OICC duties, but we expect those to start reducing quickly.

In the meantime, I’ve also been having a lot of things happening on the PhD/DrPH front.  I submitted applications for PhD/DrPH programs before I knew that I was going to have this job, so things have been moving forward with that since I’ve been here.  I applied to Washington University, Tulane, Johns Hopkins, and Boston University.  At this point, I’ve gotten interviews at all of the schools and already been accepted to Tulane.  I’m waiting now to see what happens with the other three schools as well as what the financial package will be at each.  Stay tuned!